Convert & Upgrade Word 1997-2003 DOC to DOCX Files

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Effective Methods that allows to batch convert DOC to DOCX Word files to upgrade Microsoft Office 1997, 2000, 2003 DOC to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 Documents. Update MS Office Documents with .doc extension to .docx Word XML document to easily open previous Word Documents into latest MS Word Versions.

Microsoft is well known to provide interactive service since its introduction. The biggest move was the introduction of Windows Operating System and MS Office package. Microsoft always tries to give the products and applications that can completely satisfy the present user requirements. For example, if we talk about MS Office, it consists a list of programs and applications that are crucial parts of a normal user including students, employees, workers, teachers, guides, bloggers, speakers etc. Writing this article with Office Home & Students 2016. MS Office contains applications that can be used in any domain like education, research, investigation, presentation, travelling, communication etc.

Some major applications that are the crucial part of Office are MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Access, MS Outlook, MS Publisher, MS OneNote, etc. From the list, the most common and easily applicable program is Microsoft Word, which can be defined as a simple Word Processor Program with all necessary tools inbuilt in a single application. Dictate Word as the Simple application as its interface, working, and features can be used by anyone so easily without requiring much technical knowledge. The layout is designed in such way that it can be used by any novice users easily. It gathers similar features and functions in separate Menus like File, Insert, Design, Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View, Help etc. in the latest version of MS Word 2016.

But, from its release to the present time, various versions with major updates are released time to time. The major difference is observed with the release of Word 2007, that focuses on the Graphical commands rather than text features. A new file format to store the Word document files is also released with XML variant i.e. DOCX. Old Word application like Word 1997, 2000, 2003 saves its files as .doc, while newer Word documents like Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, Word 2016 save them as .docx files. Hence, it becomes very confusing or awkward for a user to open the word file with the different extension in the application. To avoid such ambiguity, one needs to upgrade the old Word documents to newer Word files.

Why Upgrade DOC to DOCX Files?

As discussed earlier, the previous editions of Microsoft Word used .doc file format to save the documents as default file format, but with UTF-8 Unified character set enables after releases, therefore, the DOC file is updated with XML enable as .docx files. The DOCX Files are best supported on all the latest versions of MS Word like Word 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 etc. Suppose a user has Word files of older versions and need to open them into the updated Word application, then it may show some errors or maybe file cannot be open. Or you are working with the older versions and wants to update to newer versions of MS Word but does not make sure due to older documents. The major advantage to upgrading to old Word 2003 to Word 2007, 2010, 2013 or 2016 are listed below:

  • Office button & Ribbon Interface: The MS Office latest versions integrate with some very useful features including the Office button and its Ribbon interface. Office highly focuses on the appearance of the MS Word to the users with the much attractive layout. The commonly used functionality is emphasized in the latest versions of the MS Word like File Setup options, Print, Save As, Document properties etc.
  • Advanced Graphics and Object Integrations: The upgraded version of MS Word enables a user to choose from the predefined templates, graphics palettes, which can be easily implemented upon any portion or complete Word document very easily. It also provides various Gallery of the clip art, themes, Effects, cross-referencing, etc.
  • **Provide Assistance with the help of Tooltip:  **The best thing that makes the updated latest versions of MS Word more suitable for you is self-explanatory tooltip functionality. When a user places his cursor on any command or icon of the Word menu, a tooltip suggestion will pop out to explain the working of the utility.

With all the above-listed features, here are some advantages of saving Word documents as .docx instead of .doc:

The Word 2007-2016 files are smaller in size as they save their content with the compressed mode. Generally, there is different of more than half between DOC and DOCX file size with the same content. Sometimes, this different maybe up to quarterly of the DOC file. The small size of DOCX files helps the users to share, store, email, backup much easier as compared to larger DOC files with same content & information.

Due to these reasons, one may need to convert DOC files to DOCX documents. To open old or previous edition Microsoft Word 1997-2003 Documents, one can try the following manual method:

How to Convert Word DOC to DOCX Manually:

  • First of all, Open Microsoft Word application in your system.
  • From **File **Menu, cChoose the **Options **option and choose Trust Center option.

https://www.bitrecover.com/batch/doc-to-docx/guide/Word-options-button.PNG

  • Now, click Trust Center Settings options, that will pop out another Dialog Box.

https://www.bitrecover.com/batch/doc-to-docx/guide/trust-center-settings.png

  • From here, choose File Block Settings that will display all the previous list of Word File Formats and attributes. Check/Uncheck to Select the required Word document formats, and then enable the radio button with ‘open selected file types in protected view and allow editing’  caption. At last click **OK **button.

https://www.bitrecover.com/batch/doc-to-docx/guide/file-block-settings.png

It allows the users to open the older versions of Word DOC files into all latest versions of Microsoft Word with the best compatibility. To permanently save these files into the .docx format, press Ctrl+S button or Save option from the File menu and choose Word Documents (*.docx). You will receive old Word DOC as DOCX file instantly.

Limitations: The above process is very time-consuming as well one cannot apply or choose this method to apply for a large number of Word files. One need to save all the documents one by one that will reduce the efficiency of its working. Hence to perform such conversion in batch or bulk, there are various third-party applications and utilities present. You can choose any of them according to your choice. One such is BitRecover Batch DOC Upgrade or Downgrade Wizard particularly designed for this task.